The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-07-23
INDIAN OcCJlTlsM.
How the Medicine Men Test Their Super
ptitiOus Patients.

How the Medicine Men Test Their Super
Stitious Patients.
Although the Indian medicine man
does not practice with white mems
medicine, he evidently can do much
through the powerful influence of the
beliefs which actuate his subjects as
well as himself. The following declara-
ton is certainly remarkable:
81 have known neuralgias, rheuma-
tisms, fevers, dysenteries, diarrheas,
agues, paralysis, cystitis ETC.. to be per-
manently relieved or benefited; tumors
to disappear; commissions controlled or
produced; persons to become instan-
taneously stricken with blindness or
palsy; rendered oblivious to pain and
torture; deprived of muscular power
and made as rigid as marble; to drop
as if dead and pulseless; rise and walk
when an instant before incapable OF
the slightest exertion; all by the con-
jurations and incantations of medicine
men. Also, l am personally CONVEX
SAINT with the prediction of events in
the far future exactly as they subse-
quently occurred, and with scrupulous
fidelity to details; the movements Of per-
sons and individuals to be described in
minuti9 who had never been seen, much
less heard of, and who were hundreds
of miles away at the time. Moreover,
| have witnessed feats of legerdemain,
jugglery and necromancy, exhibited in
broad daylight. under the full glare of
the sun, as well as at night, without
paraphernalia or mystic aids. that
would puzzle the most astutc professor
of civilized magic; some, to be sure,
susceptible of explanation under physi-
cal and psychical laws, and others not
so readily disposed of, save as optical
and aural decisions and tricks of the
imagination"
Noise and odor are the means by
which the medicine man operates upon
the demons which afflict the sick man.
THE patient is shut up in close and
sitting atmosphere and submitted to
combinations of sounds and smells
s'calculated to drive the most obstrep-
erous of foul devils to the remote con-
fines of space--odors so very Internal
and nauseous that oven dogs are made
i'll thereby"
When the medicine man is called he
proceeds to business at once. The
diagnosis does not bother him, for all
diseases have similar origin, and, by
means of the amulets in his medicine
bag. he can Immediately find out which
is the special foul tiend he has to deal
with, as well rs discern the proper
treatment. Only one opinion is posi-
bic; the number and malignancy of the
demons at work in u given case is the
only thing to be determined.
If possible, the incarnation is put off
until night, because the spi"its ere more
easily brought under discipline in the
darkness. The proceedings usually be-
gin with monotonous chant, that rises
and falls with abrupt infections. In
this the demons are alternately coaxed
humorcd or threatened, and in every
way abjured to leave their present
habitation and resume their proper
forms. In the meantime the assistants
keep up Il running accompaniment with
drums and rattles made from gourds
and parchment. Gradually the songs
become louder and more violent,
the drums and rattles increase
their din, higher and higher, shriller
and still more shrill becomes the voice
of the conjurer, until it becomes fran
tic, piercing Shrek, and the din is n
pandemonium, altogether liendish, Graz
ing and excrucating beyond compre-
hension. Finally, utterly exhausted,
the chief performer, black in the face
and streaming pcrsriration from every
pore, pauses and-eats. All present
fall to and fill themselves to rcpletion.
This performance is repeated again and
again, while the smoke and fumes of
burning gunpowder, fish-entrails, bears
hair, parchment, fur and other odorous
substances too disgusting to mention
fill the lodge to sulfocation with smells
that can fairly be felt During the in
terval, the patient is blown upon with
the breath, the painful parts sucked
with the mouth, or gashed with knives
and f1ints, SO that an imitation of wet
cupping can be practiccd by means of
bison horn from which the air has
been exhausted by suction. TO COM
plete the expulsion of the demon, and
to keep him away, the incarnation ends
with a discharge of firearms through
the lodges and all around, and this is
sometimes kept up for hours after the
medicine man has taken his departure.
st. Louis Globe Democrat
Almost Feart-Broken.
''Madame, your husband was killed,